


Substance

by cheinsaw



Series: 77 [2]
Category: Dangan Ronpa - All Media Types, Super Dangan Ronpa 2
Genre: F/M, Recovery, man i dont even know what this is just take it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-27
Updated: 2017-08-27
Packaged: 2018-12-20 14:44:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,233
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11923113
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cheinsaw/pseuds/cheinsaw
Summary: Peko wakes from her coma.





	Substance

**Author's Note:**

  * For [shcherbatskayas](https://archiveofourown.org/users/shcherbatskayas/gifts).



> HAPPY HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO DELANEY EVENTUALGHOST!!!!! i'm so proud of you for being so strong and i know you'll continue to grow and become an even more amazing person and writer. i am so hashtag BLESSED to be your friend. i hope you enjoy this mess!

When Peko wakes she feels as though she's left her body. Everything's heavy, disconnected. There is a sharp, unrelenting pain in her chest, and she thinks for a moment that she has died. She remembers dying, of course; remembers fulfilling her duty to the Kuzuryuu clan, remembers holding her young master tight as a sword pierced her through. But she cannot be dead if she's here, unless the afterlife is a cruel one full of suffering.

There's steady beeping. A heart monitor. Hm.

Peko lies still for a few long moments until she can force herself to sit up. She quickly takes inventory of the situation: a white room blurred by the lack of her glasses. A tube in her nose and an IV in her arm. Searing pain. A familiar voice echoing down the hall, "...worry at all! I promise to take really, really good care of you while you're here! Ehehe... Ah! N-no, no, it's okay! It's really all a person like me is good for..."

Peko closes her eyes once more. If this is the afterlife, she hates it.

"P-Pekoyama-san!" the same high, fragile voice exclaims, forcing Peko to look up. Now she remembers the nurse, as vague as her figure is. Mikan. "I'll get Kuzuryuu-kun right away and I'll be right back! Don't move please!" she shouts out, and then she's gone in a breathless flash.

Peko barely has time to process this. So her young master... didn't make it off the island. The thought makes her want to throw up, but before she can think about it further there's loud footsteps in the hall and yelling and curse words and Fuyuhiko's voice, Fuyuhiko's lovely familiar voice calling her name.

"Peko, Peko, god dammit, Peko, are you okay?" Now that he's at her side she can see him better, right down to the freckles on his face and— _no_ —the black patch covering his right eye.

"Young master," she croaks out.

"Hey, no, no, none of that shit. Are you okay?" he asks again, more urgently.

"I don't know," Peko answers, truthfully. "Are we dead?"

Fuyuhiko laughs, loud and sharp. "No. Thank fuck. You're alive. The island, that was all some kind of virtual reality."

"You were in an induced coma," Mikan pipes up. "We all were."

"Yeah," Fuyuhiko says. He reaches out to grip Peko's hand. "Fuckin' Komaeda just woke up like an hour ago and I've been so worried about you this whole time—"

"How long?" Peko asks quietly. "Have I been out, I mean."

The anxiety is clear on Fuyuhiko's face. "'S been three weeks since I woke up. God dammit, Peko, I was so worried I'd lost you again..."

"Young master..."

"Stop fuckin' calling me that. Peko. I want you to call me by my name."

"If that's what you desire, then—"

"Peko, stop. Please." Fuyuhiko looks as if he might cry angrily. "Listen. My whole clan's dead. It's just you 'n' me now, and I don't—want you as a tool anymore. I want you as Peko."

Peko is at a loss for words, but her heart monitor's sudden spike in beeping is more than enough of a reply. She watches as Fuyuhiko's eyes go wide, and his face colors, and she is powerless to stop it.

"Where are my glasses?" Peko asks instead of dignifying her heart rate with a response.

"Oh, yeah, uh, I got 'em, hang on," Fuyuhiko says, removing them from his jacket. "I'm gonna put 'em on you. Don't want you to stab yourself in the eye." Peko says nothing; she sits still and closes her eyes and allows Fuyuhiko to hook the glasses behind her ears and rest on the bridge of her nose. When she opens her eyes, she can see again, and the clarity hurts, but Fuyuhiko is right there and he's so familiar and good, like in a hundred love stories that Peko's always known she could never experience.

"Thank you," she says.

"Don't mention it."

"Pekoyama-san!" someone calls from the door, making both Peko and Fuyuhiko turn sharply (and making Mikan squeak in surprise). A small group is gathered there, and it takes Peko a moment to match faces to names—Sonia, Gundam, Ibuki, Hajime. Her classmates. Peko is confused. These people were nothing more than fleeting acquaintances, and yet they are here, showing her concern.

She doesn't deserve it.

The whole class trickles by slowly to see her (though Peko notes that there is no girl with red hair, and no blonde dancer). They fill her in on the island, the state of the world, the Future Foundation. She learns she is the third-to-last of the group to wake, and that Fuyuhiko has been diligently watching over her, along with Mikan. Her classmates bring food and water and books and crutches, and Peko says _thank you_ so many times she feels she might lose her voice.

When the sun is nearly set Peko is invited to a bonfire on the beach, "with s'mores and everything!" Ibuki promises, but Peko's body feels too worn out. It frustrates her—she hasn't done anything, and yet she is weak. She cannot protect Fuyuhiko like this (and, of course, there's the fear he doesn't want her to. What would be her purpose then?).

"I would like to be left alone for now," Peko says, and rests her head against her pillow once again.

 

  
Peko thinks of the young mistress Natsumi, and her elaborate, too-soon funeral. She thinks of the reserve course girl, Satou, and of Mahiru still comatose ( _because of you,_ her mind says, _because of you_ ). She thinks of the Kuzuryuu clan all dead aside from her young master, and it is enough to make her sigh. As roughly as they treated her, they gave her a life, and she's ever grateful.

A cool breeze blows into the room from the open window. Peko can hear a few of her classmates talking and laughing outside along with the crackle of the bonfire, but she isn't able to make out the words. Instead of straining her ears for such an unnecessary thing, she folds her hands, lacing her fingers together. They're warm, soft.

"Hey," Fuyuhiko says from the doorway. "Can I come in?"

Peko nods silently. The moonlight streaming through the window catches on his pale hair. He steps into the room slowly, and makes his way over to sit on the edge of Peko's bed.

"I'm sorry," he says, and Peko cannot remember him ever saying those words with such sincerity to anyone.

"It's alright," she says.

"I just—listen, it's—I'm just really happy you're alive." He snorts. "This shit is harder than I thought."

"I know what you mean," Peko reassures him. And she does. There's something different in the way he moves now—sure of himself and deliberate and final. He's grown into a true yakuza leader. With a pang in her heart, she realizes this must have all happened while she was gone. "I'm… not sure if I have the words to express my feelings either."

Fuyuhiko sighs, a tiny smile on his face. "We have time, okay? We've got time."

Under the moonlight, Fuyuhiko offers his hand to Peko for the first time since they were children. The significance is not lost on her. She supposes this is his way of denoting that they are to be equals.

Tentatively, she accepts.


End file.
